Cup making machines of the type contemplated herein generally feed a strip of paper (thermoplastic coated if using forced hot air) through a die by using a pair of feed rollers connected to a one way clutch. A follower arm was connected to the clutch on one end and to a coupler link on the other to oscillate the arm causing the feed rolls to roll intermittently in one direction. In this arrangement, difficulty was encountered in the adjustment of the paper feed length.
The paper strip is stepped through a die to progressively form the handle. This is involved in seven steps. A pair of transfer fingers were used to support the wings for cut off and transfer the handle horizontally underneath a mandrel on the mandrel turret. A clamp on the turret swings up to clamp the handle to the cup on the mandrel. Since the transfer fingers only support the handle wings, the handles were not properly aligned on the cup.
There are twelve stations on the mandrel turret. Cups are stored in a vertical reservoir above the mandrel turret. Cups are fed onto the mandrel turret by means of an escapement device which picks off one cup at a time and pulls it down on to the mandrel. Between the second and fourth stations the cups are rotated on the mandrels by rubbing against a stationary rubber hose as the cups are indexed by. The cups are free to rotate until the inside seam of the cup hits a blade protruding from the mandrel surface. The blade stops the cups from rotating any further. The cups then slide along the hose up until the fourth station. At the fourth station the handles are clamped to the cup by a pivoting clamp arm. The arm is activated by an oscillating plate cam. Heaters in the clamp cure the glue as it indexes around to the twelfth station. In the case of heat sealing, no heat is applied and the seal is allowed to cool. At the twelfth station the cups are picked off the mandrel by a pair of fingers that pull the cups up into a nesting area. The stacks of cups are then removed from the nesting area by hand.